Day 3 - Vancouver

Derek had a late morning - his pick up was at 11:30am - but then he was there all day until ~7pm. Amongst other things, he watched some of the teams practice - first practices on Olympic ice. One thing to look out for - the Norwegian men are wearing some crazy pants. Very loud, checked pants - blinding in some ways. Apparently they have two different styles. There may have to be a pants rule after this... :)

I had my encounter with Spinnaker the Pacific white-sided dolphin. Amazing!!! Got to feed him, rub him, "train" him - okay maybe they were training me, and learn all kinds of things. Like the difference between baleen whales and tooth whales (dolphins are tooth whales).

Took a long (really long) walk along the Stanley Park seawall to get back to the skytrain stop downtown (the bus was really unreliable).

Then hustled out to the Richmond Curling Club to teach curling! Ok - this was like the perfect storm - I arrived, no one there knew anything about what was going on, there was no one else there from the USCA, I never got pants to curl in - so I had to curl in my jeans (which are not loose enough to curl in), and it turns out that the CNBC crew was there videotaping a segment to air - not just learning to curl for fun. Yup - pretty much pushed every button I have about being in a situation I can't control that has a high potential for me to end up feeling humiliated.

But it ended up going okay - I managed to slide out in my too-big borrowed shoes and too-tight jeans and not kill myself (plus I got an agreement from the cameraman that if I fell, he wouldn't show it :) ). Taught two reporters to curl - they really hammed it up. So - look for it on CNBC. If you think I look and sound like an idiot - don't tell me...

Ended up having dinner and drinks with Rick Patzke, Terry Kolesar, and Dan Fields (?) of the USCA. Plus - Derek and Kellie Krake got released earlier than expected from their duties - so they joined us as well. We watched the Simpson's curling episode (no sound though) at the bar, too.